Versa Quotes

1. "His sixth year, it seemed to him, had lasted a remarkably long time and there were points at which he frankly wondered whether he would ever turn seven. But now it was the night before his birthday, and barring some cosmic disaster, the advent of some unexpected black hole into which the earth might be sucked, with the attendant reversal or suspension of time, in very few hours he would be waking up to a world in which he was numbered among the seven-year-olds."
Author: Alexander McCall Smith

2. "And he at once determined on going to find Gilbert, who was residing at Versailles, but who, without having revisited the queen after the journey of the king to Paris, had become the right hand of Necker, who had been reappointed minister, and was endeavoring to organize prosperity by generalizing poverty."
Author: Alexandre Dumas

3. "Unscripted, unedited, and wholly authentic people are almost universally admired, especially if they have flaws, are not afraid to make live, red-blooded mistakes, and rather than trying are busy simply being."
Author: Augusten Burroughs

4. "Often their rage erupts because they believe that all ways of looking that highlight difference subvert the liberal belief in a universal subjectivity (we are all just people) that they think will make racism disappear. They have a deep emotional investment in the myth of sameness even as their actions reflect the primacy of whiteness as a sign informing who they are and how they think."
Author: Bell Hooks

5. "The aim of life is no more to control the mind, but to develop it harmoniously; not to achieve salvation here after, but to make the best use of it here below; and not to realise truth, beauty and good only in contemplation, but also in the actual experience of daily life; social progress depends not upon the ennoblement of the few but on the enrichment of democracy; universal brotherhood can be achieved only when there is an equality of opportunity - of opportunity in the social, political and individual life.— from Bhagat Singh's prison diary, p. 124"
Author: Bhagat Singh

6. "It's more like can I build a group of characters and can I tell some universal truths that feel real and aren't formulaic in the spirit of filmmakers gone by who've told American stories that were personal and universal as well."
Author: Cameron Crowe

7. "What is most personal is most universal"
Author: Carl R. Rogers

8. "Sebastian tapped his index finger on the polished wood thoughtfully. Yes, it was a universal truth: some things once broken were broken forever—like trust. It might be patched up and smoothed over, but it would always be the thing that had once been shattered."
Author: Carol Oates

9. "The man who is unable to people his solitude is equally unable to be alone in a bustling crowd. The poet enjoys the incomparable privilege of being able to be himself or some one else, as he chooses. [...] The solitary and thoughtful stroller finds a singular intoxication in this universal communion. [...] What men call love is a very small, restricted, feeble thing compared with this ineffable orgy, this divine prostitution of the soul giving itself entire...to the unexpected as it comes along, the stranger as he passes."
Author: Charles Baudelaire

10. "I'm somewhat socially inept. Slide me between two strangers at any light-hearted jamboree and I'll either rock awkwardly and silently on my heels, or come out with a stone-cold conversation-killer like, "This room's quite rectangular, isn't it?" I glide through the social whirl with all the elegance of a dog in high heels"
Author: Charlie Brooker

11. "Even the invisible are insecure. It's the most universal problem we have. It's so universal, it might not even count as a problem."
Author: Chuck Klosterman

12. "Miz Beauty does not speak. You've got to discover her erogenous zones, her favorite subjects of conversation, her sign, all on your own. Meanwhile, Miz Piggy's coming like an express train. She doesn't get it every day. And she's hell-bent to make the most of it. She wants more, more, more."
Author: Dany Laferrière

13. "You couldn't let too much truth seep into your conversation, you couldn't admit with your mouth what your eyes had seen."
Author: David Benioff

14. "Versatility is one of the few human traits which are universally intolerable. You may be good at Greek and good at painting and be popular. You may be good at Greek and good at sport, and be wildly popular. But try all three and you're a mountebank. Nothing arouses suspicion quicker than genuine, all-round proficiency." Kate thought. "It needs an extra gift for human relationships, of course; but that can be developed. It's got to be, because stultified talent is surely the ultimate crime against mankind. Tell your paragons to develop it: with all those gifts it's only right they should have one hurdle to cross." "But that kind of thing needs co-operation from the other side," said Lymond pleasantly. "No. Like Paris, they have three choices." And he struck a gently derisive chord between each. "To be accomplished but ingratiating. To be accomplished but resented. Or to hide behind the more outré of their pursuits and be considered erratic but harmless."
Author: Dorothy Dunnett

15. "Geschwätz ist jede Konversation mit einem, der nicht gelitten hat."
Author: Emil Cioran

16. "There is no remedy against this reversal of the natural order. Man cannot escape from his own achievement. He cannot but adopt the conditions of his own life. No longer in a merely physical universe, man lives in a symbolic universe. Language, myth, art, and religion are parts of this universe. They are the varied threads which weave the symbolic net, the tangled web of human experience. All human progress in thought and experience refines and strengthens this net. No longer can man confront reality immediately; he cannot see it, as it were, face to face. Physical reality seems to recede in proportion as man's symbolic activity advances. Instead of dealing with the things themselves man is in a sense constantly conversing with himself...."
Author: Ernst Cassirer

17. "The columnist gives these words to the longings of an 11-year-old he meets with Tourette's syndrome: "Wisdom is encoded in our common language. We all have, to some extent, a complex, sometimes adversarial, relationship with our physical selves. And I more than most people know that it is correct to say,'I have a body.' There is my body, and then there is ME, trying to make it behave."
Author: George F. Will

18. "Have a lived life instead of a career. Put yourself in the safekeeping of good taste. Lived freedom will compensate you for a few losses. . . . If you don't like the style of others, cultivate your own. Get to know the tricks of reproduction, be a self-publisher even in conversation, and then the joy of working can fill your days."
Author: George Konrád

19. "He died in the middle of our conversation. How rude..."
Author: Hiromu Arakawa

20. "He lived with his mother, father and sister; had a room of his own, with the fourth-floor windows staring on seas of rooftops and the glitter of winter nights when home lights brownly wave beneath the heater whiter blaze of stars--those stars that in the North, in the clear nights, all hang frozen tears by the billions, with January Milky Ways like silver taffy, veils of frost in the stillness, huge blinked, throbbing to the slow beat of time and universal blood."
Author: Jack Kerouac

21. "The two defining issues of this century are both universal but felt locally: the global water crisis and the resources boom."
Author: Jay Weatherill

22. "Many people require more than just evidence before they'll accept evolution. To these folks,evolution raises such profound questions of purpose, morality, and meaning that they just can't accept it no matter how much evidence they see. It's not that we evolved from apes that bothers them so much; it's [[the emotional consequences of facing that fact.]] And unless we address those concerns, we won't progress in making evolution a universally acknowledged truth."
Author: Jerry A. Coyne

23. "Christian Hedonism is a philosophy of life built on the following five convictions: The longing to be happy is a universal human experience, and it is good, not sinful. We should never try to deny or resist our longing to be happy, as though it were a bad impulse. Instead, we should seek to intensify this longing and nourish it with whatever will provide the deepest and most enduring satisfaction. The deepest and most enduring happiness is found only in God. Not from God, but in God. The happiness we find in God reaches its consummation when it is shared with others in the manifold ways of love. To the extent that we try to abandon the pursuit of our own pleasure, we fail to honor God and love people. Or, to put it positively: The pursuit of pleasure is a necessary part of all worship and virtue. That is: The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever."
Author: John Piper

24. "Luego reflexionó que la realidad no suele coincidir con las previsiones, con lógica perversa infirió que prever un detalle circunstancial es impedir que éste suceda."
Author: Jorge Luis Borges

25. "Worried, I touched the jacket's sleeve. "You think it's too much?" I asked, working hard to keep my tone non-combative. I'd had this conversation with ex-roommates before."
Author: Kim Harrison

26. "I write in order to find out what I truly know and how I really feel about certain things. Writing requires me to go much deeper into my thoughts and memories than conversation does. Writing provides the solitude necessary to reflect on being in this world."
Author: Leslie Marmon Silko

27. "Pain is universal... yet personal"
Author: Lily Velden

28. "A gossip is one who talks to you about others, a bore is one who talks to you about himself, and a brilliant conversationalist is one who talks to you about yourself."
Author: Lisa Kirk

29. "People wandered in for books and conversation. They brought their stories to her, some bound, and some known by heart. She recognized some of the stories as real, and some as fiction. But she honored them all, though she didn't buy every one."
Author: Louise Penny

30. "Ever notice how those who start a conversation with the phrase, "Needless to say", always seem to have a lot to say?"
Author: Mark W Boyer

31. "He didn't want her; he wanted me. Well, you know how it is."Dalgliesh did know. This, after all, was the commonest, the most banal of personal tragedies. You loved someone. They didn't love you. Worse still, in defiance of their own best interests and to the destruction of your peace, they loved another. What would half the world's poets and novelists do without this universal tragicomedy?"
Author: P.D. James

32. "The Gospel lives in conversation with culture, and if the Church holds back from the culture, the Gospel itself falls silent. Therefore, we must be fearless in crossing the threshold of the communication and information revolution now taking place."
Author: Pope John Paul II

33. "It's only their fight club, Liss," I said, having no need for her side of the conversation, "Nothing's going on. They're going to talk punches and kicking and other boring stuff." Well, actually that stuff was pretty sweet, but I wasn't about to glorify Christian and Mia hanging out."Maybe now nothing's going on," she growled, staring stonily ahead. "But who knows what could happen? They spend time together, practice some physical moves, one thing leads to another—""That's ridiculous," I said. "That kind of stuff isn't romantic at all."Another lie, seeing as that was exactly how my relationship with Dimitri had begun. Again, best not to mention that."
Author: Richelle Mead

34. "What is making contact? It is hard to define, but people do know when they have or have not made contact… Sometimes it seems that humans have lost the art. The range of possibilities for contact open to human beings is extremely large, ranging from conversations that can last hours to something as brief as a pull on a pigtail. However, just a small attempt to make contact with the other person on a regular basis can put a distant relationship back on track."
Author: Roberta M. Gilbert

35. "Moreover, in conversations with women, men do most of the talking (Haas, 1979), and despite hackneyed stereotypes about women being more talkative than men, we're apparently used to this pattern. When people listen to record-ings of conversations, they think it's more disrespectful and assertive for a woman to interrupt a m~ than vice versa (Lafrance, 1992)."
Author: Rowland Miller

36. "Man's striving for order, of which art is but one manifestation, derives from a similar universal tendency throughout the organic world; it is also paralleled by, and perhaps derived from, the striving towards the state of simplest structure in physical systems."
Author: Rudolf Arnheim

37. "Do not be irritated either with those who sin or those who offend; do not have a passion for noticing every sin in your neighbour, and for judging him, as we are in the habit of doing. Everyone shall give an answer to God for himself. Everyone has a conscience; everyone hears God's Word, and knows God's Will either from books or from conversation with other people. Especially do not look with evil intention upon the sins of your elders, which do not regard you; "to his own master he standeth or falleth." Correct your own sins, amend your own life."
Author: St. John Of Kronstadt

38. "There is a muse, but he's not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy-dust all over your typewriter or computer. He lives in the ground. He's a basement kind of guy. You have to descend to his level, and once you get down there you have to furnish an apartment for him to live in. You have to do all the grunt labor, in other words, while the muse sits and smokes cigars and admires his bowling trophies and pretends to ignore you. Do you think it's fair? I think it's fair. He may not be much to look at, that muse-guy, and he may not be much of a conversationalist, but he's got inspiration. It's right that you should do all the work and burn all the mid-night oil, because the guy with the cigar and the little wings has got a bag of magic. There's stuff in there that can change your life. Believe me, I know."
Author: Stephen King

39. "In our land of opportunities and distractions, it's hard to devote our attention to the quiet pleasures of reading. It's as if we live our lives in a noisy restaurant and can't have the intimate conversation we most yearn for."
Author: Steve Leveen

40. "The primitive craving for survival is universal in all things capable of dying. Now imagine if you could isolate the basic element that drives all animals to fight for survival? What would you do with it? I already had my own ideas when I started my search for an entity I eventually dubbed "The Determination Gene"."
Author: Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

41. "We have treated our most serious adversaries, such as Iran and North Korea, in the most juvenile manner - by giving them the silent treatment. In so doing, we have weakened, not strengthened, our bargaining position and our leadership."
Author: Theodore C. Sorensen

42. "Miss Langman was often, in interviews, described as a witty conversationalist; how can a woman be witty when she hasn't a sense of humor? - and she has none, which was her central flaw as a person and as an artist."
Author: Truman Capote

43. "Out of anger comes controversy, out of controversy comes conversation, out of conversation comes action."
Author: Tupac Shakur

44. "Surely only boring people went in for conversations consisting of questions and answers. The art of true conversation consisted in the play of minds."
Author: Ved Mehta

45. "Some people read for instruction, which is praiseworthy, and some for pleasure, which is innocent, but not a few read from habit, and I suppose that this is neither innocent or praiseworthy. Of that lamentable company am I. Conversation after a time bores me, games tire me and my own thoughts, which we are told are the unfailing resource of a sensible man, have a tendency to run dry. Then I fly to my book as the opium-smoker to his pipe."
Author: W. Somerset Maugham

46. "La science, dans la mesure où elle est inconsciemment influencée par l'idéologie réactionnaire, formule des thèses destinées à fournir une base scientifique solide à cette idéologie. Bien souvent, elle ne va pas jusque-là, et se contente de se référer à la célèbre "nature morale" de l'homme. Ce faisant, elle oublie son propre point de vue, qu'elle ne manque cependant pas d'opposer à ses adversaires idéologiques, selon lequel la tâche légitime de la science se limite à décrire les faits en dehors de toute appréciation, et à expliquer ces faits quant à leur causalité. Lorsqu'elle veut faire mieux que justifier les exigences sociales par un simple recours aux idées morales, elle use d'une méthode objectivement bien plus dangereuse, car elle dissimule les points de vues moraux derrière des thèses pseudo-scientifiques. La moralité se trouve ainsi "scientifiquement" rationalisée. (p. 148-149)"
Author: Wilhelm Reich

47. "The obvious differences apart, Karl Marx was no more a reliable prophet than was the Reverend Jim Jones. Karl Marx was a genius, an uncannily resourceful manipulator of world history who shoved everything he knew, thought, and devised into a Ouija board from whose movements he decocted universal laws. He had his following, during the late phases of the Industrial Revolution. But he was discredited by historical experience longer ago than the Wizard of Oz: and still, great grown people sit around, declare themselves to be Marxists, and make excuses for Gulag and Afghanistan."
Author: William F. Buckley Jr.

48. "The cause of justice is the cause of humanity. Its advocates should overflow with universal good will. We should love this cause, for it conduces to the general happiness of mankind."
Author: William Godwin

49. "Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong,between whose endless jar justice resides,should lose their names, and so should justice too.Then everything includes itself in power,power into will, will into appetite;and appetite, an universal wolf,so doubly seconded with will and power, must make perforce an universal preyand at last eat up himself."
Author: William Shakespeare

50. "Everybody laughs the same in every language because laughter is a universal connection."
Author: Yakov Smirnoff

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